Bonnie squeezed Meredith's arm in fareWelland took off into the crowd to look for Zander. Meredith sipped her drink and warily eyed the strangers surrounding her.
Despite the general malaise hanging over the party, some people were so wrapped up in each other that they were managing to have a good time anyway. She watched a couple kiss, as ful y focused on each other as if there was no one else in the world who mattered. They weren't worrying about the attacks and disappearances on campus, and Meredith found herself feeling a sharp pang of envy. She missed Alaric, missed him with a bone-deep longing that stayed with her, even when she wasn't consciously thinking about him.
"The kil er could be right here at this party," Samantha said unhappily. "Shouldn't we be able to sense something?
How can we protect anyone if we don't know who we're up against?"
"I know," said Meredith. The crowd parted, and she saw a face she hadn't expected: Stefan, leaning against the far wal . His eyes lit up when he saw her, and he glanced past her with a hopeful half smile already forming on his lips.
Poor guy. No matter what Meredith thought about Elena's decision to take a break - and, for the record, Meredith thought that Elena was doing the right thing; her entanglement with both Salvatore brothers meant that they had al been heading for trouble - she couldn't help pitying him. Stefan had the look of someone who was experiencing the same sharp pang of loneliness and desire as Meredith did when she thought of Alaric. It must be worse for him, because Elena was so close and because she chose to separate herself from him against his wishes.
"Excuse me for a second," she said to Samantha, and went to Stefan.
He greeted her politely and asked about her classes and her hunter training, although she could tel that he was burning to talk about Elena. He had such good manners, always.
"She's not here yet, but she's definitely coming," she told him, interrupting one of his pleasantries. "She had something to do first." His face bloomed into a smile of grateful relief, and then he frowned.
"Elena's coming here alone?" he asked. "After al the attacks?"
"No," Meredith reassured him. She hadn't thought of this, and she didn't think she should tel him Elena was with Damon. "She's with other people," she settled for saying and was glad that her answer seemed to satisfy him.
Meredith sipped her drink and hoped grimly that Elena had the sense not to bring Damon to the party.
Matt spotted Chloe from across the room. Tonight was the night, he decided. Enough playing around, enough exchanging glances and gentle, platonic hugs and hand squeezes. He wanted to know if she felt the same way he did, if she felt like maybe there was something between them worth exploring.
She was talking to someone, a guy he recognized from Vitale, and her curly brown hair shone softly in the light from overhead. There was so much life in Chloe: the way she laughed, the way she listened to what the guy was saying, attentive and involved, her face focused.
Matt wanted to kiss her, more than anything.
So he started working his way across the room toward her, nodding at people he knew as he passed them. He didn't want to look too uncool and eager, not like he was making a beeline for her, but he didn't want to stop and lose her in the crowd, either.
Matt.
Matt jerked as if he'd been stung as the silent greeting hit him. Twisting around to see where it was coming from, he found Stefan standing right behind him and frowned irritably at him. He hated when Stefan got into his head like that.
"You could have just said hi," he told Stefan, as mildly as he could. "You know, out loud."
Stefan ducked his head apologetical y, his cheeks flushing. "I'm sorry," he said. "That was rude of me, but I just wanted to get your attention. It's so loud in here." He gestured around, and Matt wondered, as he sometimes had before, how the life of a modern teenager seemed to the vampire. Stefan had experienced more than Matt probably ever would, but the loud rock music and the press of bodies al around him seemed to make him uncomfortable, showing the cracks in his disguise as someone young. He tried hard, for Elena's sake, Matt knew.
"I'm waiting for Elena," Stefan said. "Have you seen her?" The lines of his face were anxious, and, just like that, Matt's picture of Stefan as someone too old, too out of place here, snapped. Stefan looked achingly young, lonely and worried.
"Yeah," Matt said. "I just saw her at the library. She said she was coming here later." He bit his tongue to keep from adding that he'd seen her there with Damon, of al people.
Matt wasn't quite sure what was going on between Elena and the brothers, but he figured Stefan didn't need to know that Elena and Damon were together.
"I'm supposed to be staying away from her," Stefan confided sadly. "She feels like she's coming between Damon and me, and she wants some time for us al to work things out before the two of us can be together again." He glanced up at Matt, almost beseechingly. "But I thought since there are so many people here, it isn't like we'd be alone."
Matt took a swal ow of his beer, his mind working furiously. Now he knew he'd been right not to mention that Damon and Elena had been together. What game was Elena playing now?
It was a shock, too, to realize how far out of the loop he'd gotten. When did al this happen? Since Christopher's death, he'd been avoiding his friends, spending so much time focused on the Vitale Society that he missed this big development in their lives. What else was he missing?
Stefan was stil looking at him as if he was seeking some kind of approval, and Matt rubbed the back of his neck thoughtful y, then offered, "You should talk to her. Let her know how unhappy you are without her. Love is worth taking the chance."